


Settling In

by Merfilly



Category: Aliens (1986)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, New Year's Resolutions, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-29
Updated: 2008-02-29
Packaged: 2017-10-09 19:35:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/90793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After, they have to rebuild</p>
            </blockquote>





	Settling In

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aithine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithine/gifts).



> Yuletide Import Version: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1627658

Some nights it's him. Others, it might be her that has them.

The worst nights are when it is Newt.

Ellen wonders if she will ever not have night terrors of the Nostromo. Of the colony on LV-426. If she and Dwayne really can make this life work, and help Newt find the strength to grow up into Rebecca Jordan at last.

Some days, she wonders why this fell on her shoulders.

Then Bishop calls them, and reminds her that the human ego is very self-centered at times, when she brings it up. It does more for her to hear him tease her in his dry wit than hours with the psych profilers. For all her wish to never trust a synth again, Bishop is family. Like Dwayne, like Newt.

Dwayne thinks they need to get away from dirt side. He's itching to find freedom, hoping it will let him lose the nightmares in his own way.

She half wonders why he took the discharge, when he keeps training himself, day in and day out to stay in top shape. She finds him reading all the latest tech specifications on personal armor, small weaponry.

Will he leave her, as she left her daughter? Follow his impulse to fight as she had followed her need to make a richer strike? Or is it just the way he copes? Making himself be stronger than he needs to be so they'll be safe? Or, and the thought tends to piss her off as much as it makes her worry about him, is this some kind of self-inflicted punishment for not being there in that last fight?

She wishes she could force her own psychoses down long enough to reach him, to make him see that she's never held that last fight against him, that they are safe.

It's the last part of that assurance she wants to make that feels like a lie.

In the end, both times, it wasn't the xenomorphs that truly frightened her.

It was human greed and complete lack of compassion that had.

`~`~`~`~`

She's holding Newt in her arms, rocking the child who's almost too big, but needs it so much when he comes in to the room. He's got that look on his face that says he's been training hard.

"Going to catch a shower." He goes on past, locked between fighting off the memories of his last team and trying to live in the now. She lets him go with a soft murmur, and watches Newt turn too-old eyes up at her.

"Mama...is he broken?" Since their return to civilization, it had progressed from 'Ripley' to 'Mama' in sporadic thrusts. Quiet times brought out the familial name; day-to-day routines were done under proper names.

That too disturbed Ellen at times.

"We all are, in our own ways," Ellen says, still not willing to tell pretty lies to this child. Not this survivor.

Newt has no more comment for that, as she settles, and lets this woman take her into a sleep that might not be so bad.

`~`~`~`~`

Ellen sighs softly, Dwayne's head resting on her chest in the aftermath of a loving that was as abrupt and fierce as a summer thunderstorm.

"Sleep now?" she whispers softly, her fingers carding through his sweat-damp hair.

"Ellen..."

//Here it is. This is where he says it at last.// "Yes, Dwayne?"

He turns his face up to her, eyes expressing nothing but love for the moment. It may have been forged in a time of crisis, but the bond they share is real. For all her doubts on if he'll stay, she knows that much.

"We're not safe here."

She focuses on that 'we're'. It means he still sees them as a unit, together, not him plus a woman and child.

"We can't live life thinking that," Ellen says softly, earnestly trying to believe her own words.

"Ellen." He rises up, laying on one side, propped on his elbow as he looks into her eyes. "Eventually the Company will decide to go back and try again, to figure out what lies beyond LV-426 that bred such a creature. Or even try to find the other race that built the derelict." He has a very sober look on his face as he shakes his head. "When they do, they won't want three survivors who can say so much about why they shouldn't around."

She considers his words, thinking it over. Where else could they go? The company is everywhere, after all...

"I've been making contacts, Ellen. People who want honest, solid people at their backs on a world the company overlooked. It's nowhere near LV-426, has half a dozen well-explored systems around it, and it could be ours. Yours, mine, Newt's...hell, Bishop could even come with us, if you wanted him to. There's a slicer I know who could eliminate the Company protocols keeping him bound to them."

Ellen looks into the eyes of the man that saved her, let her save them all, and wonders just how she failed to think of this option. The one outside the box she had placed them all in. It makes sense...she's heard of places like that, illegal colonies that nonetheless thrive because it's not profitable to wipe them out. The planets are hard work, barely habitable sometimes, but she's been giving hard work all her life.

She thinks of the little girl that trusts in her, wonders if the child can adapt again, and dismisses the doubts that rise. Of course Newt can adapt. Ellen needs to face just one question in her own heart and mind.

Can she survive not taking this chance? Will she let it go by, and maybe lose Dwayne, possibly Newt, because she did not want to hack the black of space again?

"Let's do it, Dwayne," she whispers, and he closes his arms tightly around her, settling again so that half his weight on her.

It feels safe, and she finds sleep comes quietly this time.


End file.
